


don't play with my heart

by latchedwindows (baekdae)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M, Past BaekTao, Side!Chansoo, some feelings though, very very very very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baekdae/pseuds/latchedwindows
Summary: Byun Baekhyun has two constants in his life: 1) his number one spot in the workplace Piano Tiles competition and 2) the emotional shell he spends life in, made for his own protection. Too bad Jongdae’s talents include insane hand-eye coordination and an uncanny ability to break down Baekhyun’s walls.





	don't play with my heart

**Author's Note:**

> firstly, a huge thank you to the mods of this for running this fest! secondly, thank u to the prompter for such a cute prompt!!! i actually screamed when i saw it, i tried to do it justice but alas ;;; additional thanks go to the developer of piano tiles 2 for a ridiculously addictive game, and finally... @my betas: y'all rock
> 
>  **prompt #:** 239  
>  **pairing:** baekchen

“Baekhyun, you could be a little bit more useful, you know?” Junmyeon’s tone, to an untrained ear, would sound perfectly neutral. But Baekhyun is no untrained ear—he can hear every ounce of thinly-hidden irritation in Junmyeon’s words.

“Sorry, boss,” he says, absolutely not sorry at all. Baekhyun doesn’t even bother looking up from his phone. After all, if he wants to hit three crowns on Goldberg Variations and knock Chanyeol off the top spot in the song, Baekhyun’s going to have to focus. His fingers are a blur as they tap on the screen, and Baekhyun completely ignores Junmyeon’s growing frustration.

Three crowns flash on the screen, and triumphantly, Baekhyun lifts his thumbs off of the screen, letting it run out on its own. He watches as his little avatar moves past Chanyeol’s account on the song leaderboard.

From the cubicle next door, a chair squeaks loudly. Chanyeol’s voice rings out: “Baekhyun, you son of a bitch!”

“Sore loser,” Baekhyun retorts, cackling. However, he sobers up when Junmyeon clears his throat again. “Sorry. Really sorry, boss. You see, it’s just that I’m first place overall in our workplace Piano Tiles league, and I have a reputation to uphold. Gotta crush those little gnats into submission, or else they start thinking that they can beat you. Like Chanyeol over there.”

“I heard that!” Chanyeol yells again, utilizing his long arms to flip Baekhyun off from over the top of his cubicle. They’re next-door neighbors, a fact that Junmyeon constantly bemoans. (“Separated, you guys are already noisy enough, why the hell did I put you _together_ …?”)

“Sorry, boss,” Baekhyun repeats for the third time, at least. It comes out slurred together, closer to _sorryboss_ as one word, instead of anything intelligible. He swallows, taking his feet off of his table where they’d been propped, and fakes a sheepish look at Junmyeon. Baekhyun even bats his eyelashes an extra time or two for maximum cuteness. “I’m really sorry.”

Junmyeon doesn’t look impressed. “Okay, I _was_ going to have you show our new intern the ropes, but I’m going to executively undo that decision. Actually, he’s more of a new hire.”

“Hey, boss!” Chanyeol nearly screams, poking his head into Baekhyun’s cubicle, the tell-tale _squeak_ squeak of his chair heralding his arrival. For some odd reason, he’s holding a pink stapler. “I can do it!”

“Chanyeol, you’re so fucking loud,” Baekhyun says, “It’s like there’s a permanent exclamation point tacked to the end of your sentences.”

Offended, the man leans back in his chair, garnering another sad squeak from the old, abused office chair. “Says you!”

“Look, there it is again. Exclamation point, I tell you.”

“Byun Baekhyun, I will go over there and shove this stapler so far up your—!”

“Kinky.”

“Yeah, okay,” Junmyeon interjects delicately, face pinched in that way that made him look mildly constipated. Baekhyun’d affectionately nicknamed it the prune face for bonus irony points, but also because Junmyeon’s expression made his skin wrinkle like dried fruit. “ I just realized—I mean, remembered—that the intern’s actually a writer, so he can’t work with you guys anyway. I’m going to have him work with Yixing.”

“Aw, darn.” (Baekhyun.)

“Aw, darn!” (Chanyeol, with his ever-present exclamation point.)

Junmyeon doesn’t bother responding. Instead, the man walks briskly back to his office, muttering under his breath all the while. Shrugging, Chanyeol wheels himself back into his cubicle with his stupid squeaking chair. Baekhyun can see Junmyeon in his office, staring dejectedly at his hardwood desk. Nobody’s working. Sehun’s been in the bathroom for at least thirty minutes, and by the looks of it, isn’t coming back.

The thing is, Baekhyun knows that Junmyeon’s never going to fire them. Despite being shitty, (yeah, Baekhyun’s honest, he _knows_ he’s a shit,) he’s a pretty decent layout designer. EXO Monthly hasn’t exactly been a smash-hit in the magazine industry, and the random disappearance of half of their writing department hasn’t exactly helped—Junmyeon can’t exactly afford to lose anymore workers. Well, their writing department had been two people, but the point still stands. Yixing can’t write all of the articles about finding your true soul… or whatever it is that he writes about.

Maybe Baekhyun should start working on it. There quite a few pages that he’s supposed to have formatted by the end of the day, and after two hours of trying to beat out everyone in Piano Tiles, Baekhyun’s got his work cut out for him.

He turns his laptop on for the first time today. It’s a sleek Macbook Pro that he refers to solely as his baby. Silver on the outside, no cover, barely decorated: just a slick _EXO Monthly_ sticker of the logo he’d designed himself. On the inside, however, there’s the scratched-up remnants of an accidentally-placed Naruto sticker. Two of Baekhyun’s biggest drunk mistakes, all fitting in one square centimeter of otherwise flawless metal.

His first mistake had been buying the sticker and placing it on his laptop with superglue. Second had been trying to scrape it off in vain with a loofah in Chanyeol’s bathtub. There was almost a third incident, when Baekhyun wanted to see if giving his laptop a shower would help get rid of Naruto, but thankfully, Chanyeol was just sober enough to stop him in time.

The rational part of Baekhyun’s brain tells him that he should probably just stay away from all alcohol, for the safety of both him and his laptop, but the rational part of Baekhyun’s brain is practically there for decoration, so.

Laptop and work forgotten, Baekhyun uses his foot to propel himself out of his cubicle, and grabs onto the edge of Chanyeol’s to poke his head in. “We’re going to take the new kid out for drinks as per usual, yeah?” he asks, grinning at the giant as if they hadn’t been cursing each other seconds ago.

Chanyeol turns around, hyped already. “Hell yeah!” His computer screen is full of Pokemon cards, but Baekhyun decides to let it go this time. He files away as yet another thing he’ll bring up when he needs a favor from the taller man.

“Get back to _work_ ,” another voice calls, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun grin in tandem. They both scoot their rolly chairs towards the cubicle to Chanyeol’s other neighbor; Baekhyun’s chair gracefully silent, Chanyeol’s… less so.

“Hi, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun calls, sugar-sweet, and then he ducks right on time to avoid the balled-up piece of paper that Kyungsoo throws at him. It hits Chanyeol instead, who groans at first, and then starts whooping when the paper ball miraculously bounces into the recycling bin near his feet.

“Look, guys, the paper—!”

“That’s great, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun cuts in smoothly. He tries to quash the thrill of excitement that rises up when Kyungsoo’s lips twitch, but fails to filter, like usual. “Was that emotion you just showed there, Soo?”

As quickly as it’d been there, Kyungsoo’s almost-kinda-if-you-looked-really-hard smile is replaced by a signature scowl. “We have a publication due by the end of this week. You need to finish arranging the pages. Are you almost done yet?”

“Yes, definitely,” Baekhyun says, a little too quickly. Fuck, he hasn’t started yet. As fast as his office chair wheels let him, he rolls back to his cubicle and pretends that he has an idea of what he’s doing. “Sorry, Chanyeol, the drinks are off for tonight. We’ll take the intern out to karaoke later, yeah?”

Baekhyun puts his headphones on before he can hear Chanyeol’s response, and starts working on something that he should have started last week.

 

 

For three days, Baekhyun sees neither hide nor tail of the supposed intern. In the same three days, he’s also managed to finish laying out nearly all of the pages needed. Kind of. Not really.

“What the fuck,” Baekhyun says, expertly wheeling out of his cubicle. “Guys, I’m missing content. It doesn’t fill anywhere close to forty pages.”

Kyungsoo leans out of his cubicle, new noise-canceling headphones around his neck. “We have three long-form stories done, four one-pagers, a few good photo galleries on the best places to visit in Europe, and that’s not enough? Don’t forget ad placement.”

“I didn’t.” Baekhyun chews on his bottom lip. “If you don’t believe me, come check for yourself.”

He turns back to his computer as Kyungsoo walks over.

“Look,” Baekhyun says, flipping between windows. “The three long-forms take up twelve pages max, four one-pagers can be stretched out into maybe six with decoration, the galleries are eight or so—if Yixing writes up a little extra, we can get to ten, maybe even eleven—but even with two pages of ads, we’re still short ten whole pages of content.”

“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo calls. “Chanyeol.”

There’s no response. Baekhyun frowns, getting up for the first time that day, and peeks over the divider. “Chanyeol?”

The man is hunched over his desk, furiously concentrating on something. His eyebrows are furrowed, and the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth as he…

Plays Piano Tiles.

“Still trying to beat my high score?” Baekhyun gloats, propping his head up with his hands over the cubicle divider. “Good luck with that, sweetheart.”

“Can you not?” Kyungsoo asks. “We have a serious issue. Chan—” Before he can go on any further, however, Chanyeol lets loose an inhuman wail. Startled, Kyungsoo turns to Baekhyun.

“He lost,” Baekhyun says simply. “Little gnats, I tell you.”

Baekhyun can almost hear Kyungsoo’s eyeroll. “Chanyeol,” he calls. “Come here.” When the taller man doesn’t respond, Baekhyun continues, “You’re never going to be as good as me anyway, so don’t even bother. Just come here.”

“Wow, fuck you,” Chanyeol simpers, but he puts his phone down and wheels over. “What’s the problem?”

“Missing content,” Baekhyun says. He scrolls through the magazine draft again. “What did we have last month?”

“Did you get the photo galleries? Luhan’s been having a great time abroad!”

Kyungsoo huffs. “I’m sure he is. But we’re not missing them. Look.” Being the helpful person that he is, Baekhyun scrolls extra slow through the four or five pages worth of vacation photos, some with a smiling Luhan in them, making v-signs and posing next to Instagram-worthy foods. Baekhyun’s hella jealous.

“What about the Reader Response Responses column?” Chanyeol itches at his ear. “Before he left, that was the column that Yifa-”

Baekhyun shushes him loudly, while Kyungsoo quickly glances over to make sure that Junmyeon wasn’t in earshot. Chanyeol gasps, covering his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot!” he whispers, somehow making his words still louder than a normal level.

The other half of the writing department, Yifan, had left the company to discover himself. Junmyeon is still a little sensitive about it.

However, the idea’s not a bad one. Yifan’s Reader Response Responses corner hadn’t been exactly the pinnacle of thoughtful discourse, but it got the job done. Half advice column, half verbal shit-posting, Reader Response Responses was a place for EXO Monthly to show their fans that they really did care. According to EXO Monthly’s positive reviews, it was a highly clever satire based on the numerous other ridiculous advice columns, but while mocking, still retained the heart and genuinity of normal response columns.

Yifan wouldn’t know half the words in that review, but Baekhyun’s not judging. Somehow, it sold. 

Right now, Kyungsoo mirrors the thoughtful expression that Baekhyun’s wearing as well. “You know,” the shorter starts, and Baekhyun stifles a laugh at the way Chanyeol perks up immediately at the prospect of praise from Kyungsoo. “You’re right. That’s exactly what we’re missing.”

A grin splits across Chanyeol’s face, so wide that all of his teeth show. “Aren’t you going to give me a—”

“I’m going to go talk to Yixing, see what he can do,” Kyungsoo cuts him off smoothly, the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks. He whirls around and walks all too fast out of the office. Chanyeol is still grinning dumbly, eyes never leaving Kyungsoo’s disappearing back. When the shorter is finally out of the room, Chanyeol makes his way slowly back to his desk, not saying a word to Baekhyun, too busy in his own world.

“Huh,” Baekhyun says, looking at the door that Kyungsoo had just walked through, and then Chanyeol’s cubicle. “Huh.”

 

 

The job of reading and responding to the fanmail is delegated down to the writing office, and Baekhyun’s left with nothing to do, really. He doesn’t have any material to layout. Chanyeol doesn’t have any pages to decorate. Sehun hasn’t ever done anything anyway, and so they spend their time fucking around, basically.

“Sehun, I’ll give you three bucks if you can write ‘Junmyeon’s a prude’ on the company whiteboard,” Baekhyun says, pulling out a precious Expo marker and waving it at the intern.

As the younger of the two interns, Sehun’s only eighteen, but he’s long since perfected his expression of disdain, and Baekhyun feels it directed at him in full force. “Only three bucks?”

Baekhyun hesitates. “I’ll give you this Expo marker, too.” Next to him, Chanyeol inhales sharply.

“What the fuck?“ he yelps. “I’ve been begging you for one of those since you bought the colored pack, and you never even offered!” Feeling a little bad, Baekhyun casts a glance at Chanyeol. And then, Baekhyun feels proud of himself for feeling bad. He’s such a generous, thoughtful soul. He doesn’t feel bad anymore.

“Still not enough,” Sehun says snootily.

Once more, Baekhyun digs through his desk. “Um,” he tries, pulling out a half-full pack of Altoids. “Three bucks, a blue Expo marker, and some…. curiously strong mints?”

Sehun pauses, and then nods approvingly. “I’ll do it.” The intern slinks off, and then it's just Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Chanyeol’s squeaking chair. Baekhyun’s about to call it a day and go home, when Chanyeol suddenly screams.

Not his normal speaking scream, but an honest-to-god, there’s-a-monster-chasing-me-and-I-just-tripped scream. Baekhyun looks up in alarm.

“You good there?” he asks, one delicate finger poised above the power button on his Macbook. 

“Someone beat you on Piano Tiles!” Chanyeol yells, his own finger jabbing at something on his phone. “You’re in second place!” Baekhyun’s brain short-circuits. 

“What the fuck?” he splutters, standing up and stalking over to Chanyeol to look over his shoulder at his phone. And it’s true. On the screen, plain as day, Baekhyun’s smiling selca rests next to silver letters reading _second place in JUNMYEON’S DAYCARE._ ”Wait, if I’m not in first—“

It takes him less than a second to find the answer. _Chen-chen_ , a new user—they don’t even have a fucking profile picture—is in Baekhyun’s spot.

“Who the hell is _that?_ ” Baekhyun hisses, and Chanyeol shrugs. 

“Junmyeon’s mysterious new hire, probably. You up for karaoke tonight? I’ll text Yixing and tell him to bring the new guy along. You can fight him then,” Chanyeol says, flicking through his phone. “I gotta thank that guy, representing all of us little gnats.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Baekhyun snarls. “To think that I was almost about to give you an Expo marker.”

Chanyeol gasps.

 

 

First things first: Baekhyun is not an incredibly easy-to-impress kind of guy. That said, after going through four years of design school, visually pleasing things are very much appreciated.

“Baekhyun, Jongdae. Jongdae, Baekhyun,” Yixing says. “You guys are the same height. I’m sure you’ll get along great.” But Baekhyun’s not listening to Yixing anymore, attention fixed on the other guy at the bar counter.

Kim Jongdae is… visually pleasing, to say the least. Baekhyun swallows, his throat dry despite the amount of beer he’s already consumed.

The smiling male in front of Baekhyun sticks out a hand, eyes crinkling into cute crescents, lips curved up at the corners. “Hi, Baekhyun! Nice to meet you.” He’s wearing a simple button down, paired with work-friendly black jeans— _nice sense of style,_ Baekhyun’s unhelpful inner monologue supplies. _Bet he’d look hot with makeup on._ Mm. Baekhyun spends three seconds imagining, and then regrets it immediately when he starts going hot under the collar.

He guesses that he’s been staring for too long, because Chanyeol elbows him in the rib not-so-gently. When Baekhyun looks up to curse the taller out, he’s greeted with a knowing smirk. Flushing, Baekhyun turns back to Jongdae, not taking his hand.

“So,” he begins, trying to keep his tone even, “You’re the kid who beat me out of my first spot on Piano Tiles, huh.”

Jongdae is first surprised, dropping his hand, and then he is grinning again. “Yup,” he laughs, putting his hands in a _what-can-I-say_ position. “Heard that you had a bit of a winning streak going on, and I had to try to break it.” His expression turns smug, fingers curling around the neck of the beer bottle in his hand. “What, are you mad?”

“Absolutely not,” Baekhyun retorts, but yeah, he is. Baekhyun is nothing if not petty, and he definitely wants his spot back. “Just be prepared to eat dust when I beat you.”

Jongdae makes a dismissive noise. “Sure, sure,” he says loftily, faking a Sehun face and waving his hand at Baekhyun, but he breaks character and grins when he notices Baekhyun’s offended expression. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re probably not going to go anywhere past second place.”

“Great, but I won’t be happy until I’m above you.”

“What, you want to be on top of me that badly?” Jongdae even fucking winks, and Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say. His once top-notch flirting skills fail him as he sputters, trying to come up with something to say in return. He's been out of the game for so, so long; he's totally out of practice. Baekhyun doesn't really know if he wants to do this at all. 

But when Jongdae flashes another bright, bright grin with his fucking perfect teeth, Baekhyun is at a loss again. He can only gape at Jongdae, feeling his stomach drop out as he stares longer and longer at the other man. He's so pretty, it's unreal.

Chanyeol chooses the worst time to swing back in. “Whoa,” he cackles, “How’d you get Baekhyun to shut up?”

Instead of saying anything, Jongdae takes a long, smug sip from his drink. It's a fluorescent cocktail, and Baekhyun wrinkles his nose. It’s the only coherent response he can come up with right now. Without a doubt, Baekhyun seethes, he’s one of _those_ guys—Jongdae knows full-well that he’s hot.

"He just couldn't believe that someone had actually beaten his record on Piano Tiles. Sore loser," Jongdae teases, without any trace of malice. Baekhyun bristles at the insult nonetheless, but is too stunned to actually come up with his own comeback. It's not the whole truth; Jongdae'd carefully glossed over the part where he'd made a sex joke literally four minutes into their introduction. But something tells Baekhyun that Chanyeol already has a pretty good idea of what'd gone down, by the way his smirk turns from annoying to absolutely insufferable.

"I found a table," he calls loudly, one hand grabbing the collar of Baekhyun's shirt in a death-like grip, the other lightly touching Jongdae's shoulder. "Come sit!"

Jongdae goes willingly, but Baekhyun elbows Chanyeol in the ribs, eyes wide. "What the fuck, aren't you supposed to—"

“It's about time,” Chanyeol all but hisses. “This is good for you, Baekhyun. Just follow along.” Not that Baekhyun has a choice, really, because Chanyeol’s basically dragging him anyway.

They end up at a small booth. Kyungsoo's there, surprisingly, an impressive amount of empty glasses scattered in front of him. Still, when he waves at Baekhyun, he seems sober as always.

"Jongdae, Kyungsoo. Say hi," Chanyeol rushes, and then before either of them can say anything, Chanyeol shoves Jongdae and Baekhyun into the empty seat, taking the seat next to Kyungsoo himself. A little too tipsy to resist Chanyeol's push, Baekhyun knocks head-first into Jongdae's shoulder, which would almost be cute in a K-drama way, except: 1) it fucking hurts and 2) when they collapse into the booth, Baekhyun lands mostly on Jongdae, who of course doesn't really seem to mind.

"What the fuck," Baekhyun yelps, scrambling to get off Jongdae. His head smarts from where it had made contact with Jongdae's bony shoulder, and he tries to stave off a blush by reaching up to rub at the injury. The smug look on Chanyeol’s face tells him all that he needs to know, but the taller man still has the nerve to mouth “ _don’t fuck this up_ ” at him. Baekhyun's eyes narrow when he notices the whole table laughing at him. Chanyeol had been expected, as had Jongdae, who much to Baekhyun's annoyance seemed to have escaped any physical harm despite also being pushed, but... "Et tu, Kyungsoo? Et tu?"

The man in question smiles half-way apologetically at him from across the table. Upon second glance, Kyungsoo is a little bit red in the face. "Sorry, Baekhyun, but that was pretty funny." He finishes off the drink in his hands, and then puts it with the rest of the empty glasses. "Chanyeol, get me another one?"

Without a single complaint, the taller man jumps up, already flagging down the bartender as he goes up to the bar counter. Highly suspicious, Baekhyun notes, because usually at work Chanyeol wouldn't even bother to write the four extra letters of his own name. He's pretty sure that the higher managements have just been writing paychecks out to Mr. Park Chan for the past few months.

"Whoa," Jongdae says, and Baekhyun turns to look at him. But the other man is looking at Kyungsoo. "Did you drink all of those by yourself?"

Kyungsoo grins. "Yes, why?"

"High tolerance." Impressed, Jongdae leans back in the booth, slinging an arm comfortably around Baekhyun, who freezes at the sudden contact. God, he's not drunk enough for this. Or maybe he's plenty drunk, and Jongdae's presence is just always like this. Where is Baekhyun's confidence? Why is he such a bumbling mess right now?

A loud whoop announces Chanyeol's re-arrival at their table, four glasses expertly held in his massive hands. "A drink for each of us... except Baekhyun." 

A normal glass of tap water is set in front of Baekhyun, who balks. "What? Why don't I get a cocktail?"

"Because I love you, sweetheart, but you're a fucking lightweight," Chanyeol says faux-sweetly. Kyungsoo laughs uproariously again, and Baekhyun thinks that he’s got to be pretty drunk to laugh this much at Chanyeol’s jokes. “Remember Naruto?”

Baekhyun can't argue with that, and so he bites his tongue, waiting for Jongdae to make fun of him. But it never comes.

"Oh, are you two...?" Jongdae asks instead, voice hesitant and a little confused. The arm around Baekhyun's shoulders vanishes. He looks between Chanyeol and Baekhyun, the smile gone from his face. It takes Baekhyun a minute to figure out what he means, and then he's choking on his tap water. Chanyeol’s grin is impossibly wide.

"No!" Baekhyun spits, coughing. "God, no!" Turns out he swallowed a little bit more water than expected, and Baekhyun brings up his elbow to avoid coughing all over the table. Jongdae thumps him on back good-naturedly, which only serves to make Baekhyun cough harder. It's an elegant scene all around, and Chanyeol's laughing again. Baekhyun doesn't think Kyungsoo's stopped laughing once.

"What, is it National Pick on Baekhyun Day or something?" Baekhyun whines, once he's finally got his breath back. He moves to stand up, joking, "I might as well leave right now."

But Jongdae tugs him closer, arm swung back around Baekhyun's neck. "No," he says, matching Baekhyun's whine in pitch. "Stay. We'll stop making fun of you. Right, Chanyeol?" 

Chanyeol snorts, a highly-amused expression on his face. "Sure thing, Jongdae." He looks at Baekhyun one more time, as if it weren’t obvious enough the first twenty million times, and raises his eyebrows and looks at Jongdae pointedly. It's a non-verbal command that Baekhyun pretends not to get. 

_God_ , Baekhyun thinks. He's so close to Jongdae, shoulder to chest. He turns the slightest bit and notices that Jongdae's actually got an ear piercing, just a small stud in that one ear— _oh no_ , Baekhyun thinks, _that's kind of hot._ Unfortunately, before Baekhyun can turn back around and pretend that he hadn't seen anything, Jongdae looks down and catches him staring. 

"Like what you see?" Jongdae says in a low murmur, too low for anyone for anyone else to hear. But his eyes are sweet as he looks at Baekhyun.

There’s plenty of alcohol in his system, bringing a pleasant buzz in his veins, and Baekhyun's decision-making skills go out the window. He brings his hand up to lightly tug on Jongdae's ear stud, inwardly grinning when Jongdae's eyes widen. "It's pretty," Baekhyun says simply, and watches in satisfaction as Jongdae's smile turns a little bit awed.

Kyungsoo coughs from the other side of the table, and Baekhyun drops his hand, a faint blush creeping up his neck. Oops, he’d forgotten that they’d had an audience. Chanyeol, the asshole, looks absolutely delighted, and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at him.

"So, uh, Jongdae, how's EXO Monthly treating you?" Kyungsoo manages out, staring intently at Jongdae’s hand, which rests lightly on Baekhyun’s arm.

Unashamed, Jongdae smiles. “It’s pretty good!” he chirps, moving his hand lower to mindlessly play with the fabric of Baekhyun’s sleeve. Maybe it’s on purpose, though, but Baekhyun doesn’t really care. “Yixing’s fun but sweet, pretty good work partner. I really like how much room the writing office has; the intern, Jongin, doesn’t take up a lot of room, so Yixing and I basically have the whole floor to ourselves.”

Chanyeol’s jaw drops open. Baekhyun would also be shocked, if not for the fact that he’d once walked in on Yixing moving all of the file cabinets on the writing floor into the shape of a maze instead of doing any work. While floor beneath theirs is almost exactly the same size, Baekhyun knows for a fact that the writing department has no cubicle dividers, nor any offices. It’s just open space, a fact that Yixing constantly takes advantage of. Baekhyun’s pretty sure that the tiled floor is stained with Expo marker from the numerous times Yixing has drawn on it. Jongin, the cuter and more useful of the two interns in Baekhyun’s humble opinion (don’t tell Sehun), had proved himself to be quite the artist when he’d sketched out a perfect representation of Junmyeon’s prune face.

“You have the whole floor to yourselves?” Chanyeol asks jealously, arms crossed. “No cramped cubicles? No annoying co-workers to bother you?”

“Nope,” Jongdae laughs, and mock-comfortingly, says: “Why, who’s bothering you, Chanyeol?”

In response, Kyungsoo snorts. “No one’s bothering Chanyeol. Him and Baekhyun bother _me_.” He raises a hand when both open their mouth to protest. “Shut up. You guys are a nuisance.”

Baekhyun recovers first, batting his eyelashes in a disgusting manner, because he knows that Kyungsoo hates it. None of his words make it out of his mouth, though, because Jongdae gets there first.

“Baekhyun? Bothering Kyungsoo? For shame, for shame!” he teases. “How could you be so rude? Some of us are trying to get work done, you know?”

A moment of silence passes as Kyungsoo and Chanyeol wait for Baekhyun’s reaction, and then they explode in laughter because Baekhyun is gaping like a fish, out-matched again.

“Hey, I don’t think Baekhyun’s said a single word in the past two minutes,” Chanyeol booms, in between laughs. “Jongdae, tell us your secret. This is the longest I’ve ever heard him stay quiet!”

“And it’s two minutes longer than I’ve ever heard you stay quiet,” Baekhyun grumbles, ears burning bright red as he actively avoids Jongdae’s stare. He takes a long sip of the glass in front of him, and groans as he’s reminded of the tap water. “Fuck you, I want a real drink.”

“Wanna go get one with me?” Jongdae asks, his own empty glass dangling from his fingers. What the fuck, Baekhyun hadn’t even seen him drink it. The other man shows no signs whatsoever of having consumed the alcohol. Perhaps Jongdae had dumped it under the table, but something tells Baekhyun that Jongdae's got quite a capacity for alcohol.

“Sure,” he agrees, pushing himself (and Jongdae, via the arm around his shoulders) up. Baekhyun flicks a look at Chanyeol “Uh, you guys cool with that?”

“Don’t come back!” is Chanyeol’s cheery response. Laughing, Jongdae links his arm through Baekhyun as if they hadn’t been close enough already.

“C’mon, what do you like? I’ll pay,” Jongdae offers. Baekhyun grins for all of two seconds, before he hears Chanyeol’s last comment:

“Sex is good, but always remember—”

And Kyungsoo chimes in, cackling. Baekhyun had been totally wrong when he’d first assumed that Kyungsoo hadn’t been affected by the drinks. Kyungsoo’s drunk off his ass. “—use protection!”

Baekhyun turns around just to flip both of them off, but Jongdae’s already pulling him towards the bar. It takes barely one more beer for Baekhyun before he’s completely flushed, way past just tipsy now. Infuriatingly, Jongdae doesn’t seem drunk at all. Instead, his smirk gets wider and wider with each dumb thing that Baekhyun says, tongue loose from the alcohol.

“What the fuck,” Baekhyun finally says, frustrated. “Why aren’t you drunk?” It comes out much more of a whine than he intends it to. Still, by Baekhyun’s drunk calculations, Jongdae’s had just as many, if not more, drinks, so this is a legitimate question.

Jongdae makes an amused noise. “Do you want me to be?”

“I don’t know, but your tolerance is insane—For fuck’s sake!” Baekhyun yelps, as Jongdae grabs Baekhyun’s drink and downs the rest in one gulp. It hadn’t been a light cocktail, either, Baekhyun’s on his fourth beer, at least. 

“There,” he says, setting the empty bottle down and smacking his lips. The faintest of blushes has spread across his cheeks, and then Jongdae leans far too close into Baekhyun’s personal space. His breath smells like mint, somehow. “Happy?” he whispers.

And this must have been the point where Baekhyun finally, finally gets drunk, because the next thing he knows is that Jongdae’s lips are on his and they are kissing. He doesn’t know who leaned in first to close the last few inches, but the sober part of him hopes to god that it was Jongdae. Baekhyun has embarrassed himself enough for today. 

“Well, that was forward,” Jongdae laughs when they break for air. Well, fuck, Baekhyun might as well die now. But before he can drunkenly fling himself out of a window, Jongdae grabs him by the collar and pulls Baekhyun into another round of kissing.

It’s nice, Baekhyun guesses, but man, he’s so drunk, he doesn’t really know. Jongdae expertly pulls out his wallet with one hand and dumps a wad of cash on the bar counter, the other still fisted in Baekhyun’s shirt. Something feels weird, but Baekhyun’s too caught up in the feeling of Jongdae wrapping an arm around him.

“This isn’t really one of those nightclubs,” Jongdae mutters. “We should probably go outside before we get kicked out.”

They don’t break apart until they’re outside of the bar, stumbling and tripping into multiple people on their way out. Baekhyun is woozy and unsteady on his feet, but Jongdae is always a step ahead of him, catching him every time his legs threaten to give out on him. When Baekhyun checks his phone only to notice a text from Chanyeol that reads _ksoo and i went home together, u and new guy have fun~~~~,_ Jongdae hails a taxi.

To be quite honest, Baekhyun still doesn’t fully grasp the situation at hand. He’s drunk, Jongdae’s hot. It should be easy, right?

But when the taxi actually does pull up on the curb, it feels like someone’s dashed a pail of cold water over Baekhyun’s head. He can’t, not like this. No. Jongdae is hot, but Baekhyun has done this before and the threat of six more months of heartbreak terrifies him. The drunken haze doesn’t help anything, only adding to Baekhyun’s rising panic.

“Yours or mine?” Jongdae asks. His eyes shine in the moonlight, smile gentle and soft, his arm a comforting warmth around Baekhyun’s waist. Baekhyun likes him a lot. But Jongdae isn’t looking for a long-term thing, he’s just… Oh, god. The alcohol thrumming in his veins augments every single thought, and soon, Baekhyun is terrified of repeating mistakes long forgotten.

“No,” Baekhyun gasps. He feels out of control, like someone else is speaking for him, but his own lips are moving to say the words. There’s a wave of mixed emotions crashing over him: confusion, apprehension, and fear. 

In alarm, Jongdae looks at him. “Sorry, what?”

“No,” Baekhyun repeats, pulling himself out of Jongdae’s grasp, staggering when there’s suddenly no one to hold him up. “Sorry, no, I can’t, I'm drunk and you're not, I can't help—”

“Baekhyun?” Jongdae asks, reaching out for him again, worry and confusion painted over his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes— No,” Baekhyun stammers, embarrassed, but he ducks away from Jongdae’s reach anyway, and then shakes his head violently. “I can’t,” he tries to explain, and _oh, god_ , why won't his words come out in the right order? How does he explain to Jongdae that he wants this too much, and that's why he's saying no? It doesn't even make sense to Baekhyun himself, not when his thoughts won't align with what his heart wants.

Baekhyun might cry. There’s a moment of silence as Jongdae digests the meaning, broken only when the taxi driver honks his horn. Three very separate things, but in Baekhyun's mind they all 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Here,” Jongdae says, opening the taxi door for Baekhyun and trying to help him in, but for the third time, Baekhyun pulls away, unsteadily climbing in himself. “I’m not going to go with you." Jongdae's voice is soft but his eyebrows are knitted together and he looks concerned. Maybe disappointed, Baekhyun thinks. “I just want to make sure you get home safely.”

Baekhyun sniffles pitifully, and tells the taxi driver his address. Jongdae stands with his arm braced on the open car door, an expression of worry on his face. He hesitates for a moment, and then holds out a napkin.

“I wrote my number down earlier for you because I, uh, assumed… um, yeah,” Jongdae pauses, itching at his neck awkwardly. “But right now— right now it’s not for any romantic reason at all, I just want to make sure you get home okay. Text me if possible?”

Baekhyun stares blankly at the outstretched napkin.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Jongdae hurriedly amends. “I just— I just feel shitty, because you’re really, really drunk and it’s partially my fault that you are. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me. This is not another flirting technique, I swear to god, I’m just really fucking sorry and I don’t want you to get hurt or anything.”

“It’s not your fault,” Baekhyun says, because it really isn’t at all. He looks at Jongdae’s worried face, and suddenly feels so much shame for ruining the other man’s night. “Go have fun, I’ll be fine.” When Jongdae doesn’t look convinced, Baekhyun takes the napkin and folds it up.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Jongdae asks. 

“I’m sorry, Jongdae,” he says. Baekhyun feels like he’s going to cry again, or maybe throw up.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Go home, take an Advil in the morning. Get home safe, alright?” Jongdae soothes. He tries to say something else, but then the taxi driver makes an exasperated noise and so Jongdae closes the door. He waves until Baekhyun can’t see him anymore.

When he gets home, Baekhyun attempts to type in the number, squinting at his phone screen when the letters and numbers all blur together. At some point, he flops over on his bed and passes out, still crying a little.

 

 

His head pounds like a motherfucker. Baekhyun can’t remember the last time his head hurt this much. The ringing of his cell phone is piercing in the quiet apartment, and it takes Baekhyun three tries before he successfully swipes it off of his nightstand.

“What the fuck?” he grumbles into the receiver, waiting for Chanyeol’s hella good excuse for calling him at the ass crack of dawn.

“It’s eleven-twenty, Baekhyun. Aren’t you up yet?” Chanyeol teases from the other side. “Did you guys stay up that late?”

“Who?” Baekhyun asks blearily, because as far as he knows, he’s pretty fucking alone.

“Aw, don’t be shy, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol coos. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”

Disgusted, Baekhyun sits up in bed, grimacing and groaning the entire time. As he opens his mouth to tell Chanyeol exactly where to put that stick in the mud, a piece of paper flutters down into his lap and Baekhyun pauses. It’s not a piece of paper, he realizes. It’s a napkin.

Oh fuck.

“Baekhyun?” Chanyeol says, voice crackling just a little as Baekhyun sets his phone off to the side.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Baekhyun unfolds the napkin, stares at it; pretty printed numbers and the cute little hearts that Jongdae had painstakingly drawn for him. He’d kissed the guy first, and responded when Jongdae kissed him back. He takes the phone back, staring at the half-added contact, and puts his finger over the _add_ button... before deciding better and deleting the number completely.

God, what’s wrong with him?

“Baekhyun, what the hell—”

“Jongdae didn’t come home with me,” Baekhyun says flatly. “I didn’t go home with him, and we didn’t have sex. I’m alone and hungover.”

There’s a baffled silence. 

“Why not?” Chanyeol sounds genuinely confused, but it’s hard for Baekhyun not to take it like an insult.

“Because we all know my last one-night stand went well, right?” he snaps, and then stops. Because, damn, he shouldn’t have brought it up. Well, no reason not to now. He’s fucked up well enough.

“You can’t still be thinking about that, Baek. ” Chanyeol’s voice is low and quiet, a rare but scary occurrence. “It’s been over a year, I thought you’d moved on.”

“I have moved on!” Baekhyun makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t think about Zitao at all, we weren’t ever a thing.” And it’s true. Baekhyun’s not lying when he says he’s over Zitao, though. It doesn’t hurt at all, but Baekhyun can remember pretty clearly when it _did_ hurt, and he doesn’t really want have any excuse to repeat the cycle over again.

“Then why not Jongdae? You guys were kissing at the bar, I saw.”

Baekhyun bites at his thumbnail, nervously ripping at the skin. “That was a mistake!” he hisses. “I was drunk and dumb. I told you guys a long time ago that I didn’t want to go home with anyone ever again.”

“But you were so into him?”

“Yeah, I was, but he wasn’t into me in the same way, okay? He literally invited me home for sex, and that's it. Now can you just let me get over it in peace?” Baekhyun hisses.

“What the fuck do you mean, he’s not into you—”

There’s a muffled sound from the other side, a faint cry of what might be Chanyeol yelping in pain, but it’s been mostly covered by static rustling. When the sound picks up again, it’s Kyungsoo’s voice filtering through the receiver this time.

“Hey, Baek,” he says, and Baekhyun freezes.

“Well, hey,” Baekhyun responds, rather acerbically. “Looks like at least you two got busy last night.”

There’s a heavy pause from the other end, and then Baekhyun feels bad because Kyungsoo has done nothing to deserve this. They are co-workers but they are also friends, and to be quite honest, Baekhyun can’t really afford to lose friends at this point.

“Sorry, man,” he mumbles. “You didn’t need that.”

“It’s fine, I’m okay. But… are _you_ okay?” Kyungsoo asks gently, and Baekhyun makes a small noise that is neither affirmation nor disagreement, somewhere halfway between, because that’s just how he feels. Baekhyun has never been good at emotion, too often slapping a smile over everything and trying his best to smooth it over. All his sarcasm and shittiness has to serve a purpose after all, and Baekhyun had found out a long time ago that it was the easiest way to feel better about everything. Although, it bites him in the ass from time to time.

“So you didn’t go home with Jongdae,” Kyungsoo states. “And that’s totally okay, you know. Was there any reason in particular?”

“No, not really,” Baekhyun lies.

“Not attractive?”

Baekhyun swallows. “No, he was plenty good-looking. And funny, too. He was nice.”

“Nothing about him bothered you at all?”

“He was pretty great,” Baekhyun says. “I liked him a lot.” And that was the problem.

He can hear Kyungsoo’s question before the other man asks, but that doesn't mean that Baekhyun has an answer for him. But Kyungsoo doesn’t ask, more tactful than Chanyeol and more aware of the fears that Baekhyun tries to keep bottled up inside.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Kyungsoo says softly. “You took medicine for your hangover, right?”

“Yes, mom,” Baekhyun tries to joke, even though he hasn’t, but it comes out sounding much more annoyed than he means it to. “Um, uh, Kyungsoo, I was actually going to go shower, so...” He doesn’t want to shower at all. Baekhyun just wants an excuse to hang up and wallow in self-pity by himself. It’s always worse when it comes from other people.

“Yeah, of course. If there’s anything you need at all…” Kyungsoo trails off, because he knows Baekhyun’s already heard the same words hundreds of times. “We’re just worried.”

A little ashamed for lying, Baekhyun stares at his bedsheets. “You guy don’t need to. Honest to god. I’ll be fine.”

Kyungsoo hangs up and Baekhyun set his phone on the bed, flopping back down and wincing when his head pounds. There’s still two bottles of beer in his fridge, he knows, and Baekhyun briefly entertains the idea of using them to dull his headache. But the moment passes when Baekhyun thinks of Kyungsoo’s disapproving face.

“Okay, okay,” he says to no one in particular, grumbling as he forces himself up off the bed. “I’ll shower.”

The water’s not quite warm enough when Baekhyun hops in, but every extra minute that he doesn’t get in the shower is another minute that Baekhyun might give up on the idea completely. Plus, he’s hoping that the cold water will wake him up somewhat. It takes him three tries to find the bottle of shampoo. Baekhyun’s mind is elsewhere.

He has one main problem, and it’s the newest member of the EXO Monthly team. Baekhyun is kind of, horribly, attracted to Kim Jongdae. He’s nice, he’s funny, and he’s attractive. He checks all the positive traits, and each one is another nail in Baekhyun’s coffin. Baekhyun can’t help but feel like he did the wrong thing last night, even when there was nothing else he could have done.

Jongdae had been looking for a one-night-stand, a no-strings-attached relationship, at best. And Baekhyun doesn’t do those. There was nothing else he could have done, he repeats to himself firmly. Baekhyun finishes showering, but he doesn’t turn the water off.

No other choice but to do his best to forget about Kim Jongdae, then. Baekhyun’s fucked things up pretty well, enough that any relationship past co-worker is probably impossible at this point.

Still, as water runs down his back, Baekhyun can’t crush the little part of him that asks, _but what if?_

 

 

In hindsight, it had totally been Baekhyun’s fault. From the first time, Zitao had made it completely clear that this—whatever they had, _this_ —wasn’t anything romantic. Just friends helping each other out.

Baekhyun guesses that he’d read too many novels where things all worked out, then. Because he’d ended up falling anyway, but Zitao didn’t. It sucked when he confessed only to find that the feeling wasn’t mutual, and it sucked when Zitao called to tell him that it was over, that he’d found an actual lover. One that lived at his apartment permanently and not just whenever he was called.

Afterwards, Baekhyun always made sure to go out only with Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, because they might be coworkers, but they’re also the closest friends he has. And they kept him away from pretty strangers and took him home when he got too drunk, not letting him roam the dance floor alone, looking for trouble.

It’d taken Baekhyun two months to stop feeling like his heart had been ground to dust, three more to stop thinking about it, and another two to start laughing and joking like usual. He doesn’t know how long it’s going to take for him to be okay with trying it again. By his count, there aren’t enough months in the year for that. Preparing for heartbreak isn’t really a thing you can do, so Baekhyun just avoids the possibility altogether. The best way to not feel hurt is to not feel at all, he guesses.

But that’s all in the past now, and it doesn’t do any good to think about it. Baekhyun has been happy for the better part of a year. He’s even working getting a new date soon.

Kim Jongdae pops into his mind, unbidden, and Baekhyun tells himself he’s got to cut it out before it gets worse. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t exactly work.

 

 

Monday finds Baekhyun sitting at his desk again, running final edits, headphones plugged in as he arranges and rearranges the magazine. There’s still material missing, and he puts in a tentative placeholder of where the stuff should go.

Chanyeol, the lucky bastard, has been free all morning. But he’s been kinda weird, speaking nervously as if Baekhyun was a delicate china doll that would break at any moment.

“Hey, Baekhyun, I was just wondering, if, potentially, you could—” Chanyeol’d stammered at Baekhyun when he got in, hands laced together in a decidedly un-Chanyeol fashion. “-you know, check over my formatting?”

“Yeah, of course,” Baekhyun’d said, and then furrowed his eyebrows when Chanyeol scampered to give him the flash drive and then ran away like a scared little mouse. 

But the magazine layout is pretty darn good, so Baekhyun can’t complain. He’s just worried about the pieces they have missing, but there’s still nothing there. So he pulls out his phone and opens Piano Tiles, because Byun Baekhyun has a score to settle.

He scowls when he sees Jongdae’s profile-picture-less account at the top of the leaderboard, the large number one still glowing smugly above the empty icon. Baekhyun can still feel the other man’s smirk, his lingering eyes, and...

“You’re going down, motherfucker,” Baekhyun mutters under his breath, opening up Valse Gracieuse and tapping away. He’d been first on this song ever since it’d been unlocked, but now, Baekhyun sits sadly in second place. But not for much longer. “I’m reclaiming my spot.”

Six hundred and twenty-five black tiles later, Baekhyun sneezes, and his left thumb flicks just a millimeter to the side, enough for him to hit the wrong square. 

“Aw, shit,” Baekhyun whines. But six hundred and twenty-five is pretty good, isn’t it? Baekhyun holds his breath as he presses the next button. 

Above him, in large sparkling letters: _chen-chen_ , first place on Valse Gracieuse in JUNMYEON’S DAYCARE with…. 2058 squares.

“Two thousand and fifty eight?” Baekhyun yelps, staring at the screen in disbelief. He slumps back in his chair, groaning. He’s never going to beat Jongdae. In defeat, he drags his pointer finger across the screen, accidentally refreshing it.

In the last five minutes, Jongdae’s gotten a profile picture. It’s an adorable selca of him in a hoodie, hair all ruffled, lips curled in the corners. Baekhyun has to force himself to tear his eyes away from it. 

 

 

It’s well past five o’clock, well past when work officially ends. But the whole office is still here, including the two interns. Jongin is currently deep in discussion with Kyungsoo and Yixing, while Chanyeol and Sehun are helping Junmyeon organize last-minute advertisements.

Baekhyun, being executive editor, is having a meltdown. EXO Monthly goes out for publication tomorrow, and he’s still missing ten whole pages of content. Before he can start ripping out his hair or crying, though, Kim Junmyeon—saint of all saints, so long as he has the content—knocks on Baekhyun’s cubicle wall, stepping in. Baekhyun knows it’s Junmyeon because no one else smells that pungently of flowers.

“Hey, boss,” Baekhyun says, trying to act calm. He turns around in his chair to look at Junmyeon. And then he goes still when he sees who’s behind his boss.

It’s Kim Jongdae, looking better than he should in office wear. A pair of black-rimmed glasses is perched on the end of his nose. He blanches when he sees Baekhyun.

“This is Baekhyun, Jongdae—”

“We’ve met,” Baekhyun cuts in. Jongdae flinches, and then Baekhyun instantly feels bad, because he hadn’t meant for it to be curt.

“Oh, uh,” Junmyeon says, surprised and a little uncomfortable. “Okay, I’m glad! Anyway, Jongdae here has the few pages of missing content that you need, Baekhyun! You guys work together quickly now, we only have a couple days until this is due.” He claps Jongdae on the shoulder, clearing his throat, and then sensing the awkwardness, high-tails it out of Baekhyun’s cubicle.

From over the divider, Baekhyun can see the top of Chanyeol’s head, who is no doubt utilizing his height to secretly spy on them. Fucker. But Baekhyun can’t deal with that right now, because there is a more pressing issue.

“...You said you had some stuff?” Baekhyun motions at the corner of his cubicle, where an extra fold-up chair rests against his file cabinet. “Pull up a chair.”

Dutifully, Jongdae does, and then holds out a flash drive. “I, uh, wrote some stuff. There was recently an upsurge of tourist crimes, but everyone writes about travel safety, so I penned a longform research article about how and why criminals target tourists. I’m worried that it’s a little bit too investigative, but both Yixing and Junmyeon thought it was okay.”

Fuck, he’s smart too, Baekhyun’s absolutely useless inner monologue provides, and Baekhyun swallows thickly. “How many pages?” he manages, plugging in the flash drive and nearly choking when he sees the word count in the corner of the document. It keeps rising too, as more and more pages load.

“Around ten?” Jongdae says hesitantly.

“Fuck,” Baekhyun exhales. “Fuck.” It’s too perfect. Ten pages of text fills the hole that they have right now exactly. No extra re-fitting, no nothing. Baekhyun could kiss Jongdae right now.

“Is that too much?” Jongdae, worried, leans over to look at the computer screen. “I can cut some out if you want, trim down the explanation or—”

The way he speaks is so cordial and nice and polite. Baekhyun has a hard time matching it up with the flirty man he’d met at the bar, but as he studies the other man’s face, it’s obviously the same sharp jawline, same tempting curve to the lips. Still the same Jongdae. Fuck, Baekhyun’s been staring for too long.

“No, it’s perfect! Look, look,” Baekhyun says, switching back to his other tab and scrolling through the empty pages. “Ten, made just for your… longform research article.”

Relieved, Jongdae sinks back in his chair, a gentle smile spreading over his face. “Thank god.”

Baekhyun starts copying-and-pasting the text in. It takes a matter of minutes, and he spins around to face Jongdae after he’s finished. “Any ideas for your graphics?”

Pulling and arranging the images and design borders for the article takes a good three hours, and after they finish, Baekhyun’s eyes hurt from staring at the screen for so long. Likewise, Jongdae looks like he’s about to slump over from exhaustion. It’s nearing nine o’clock at night, and almost everyone else is gone. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol are still here (Baekhyun thinks he can see Jongin slumped over the water cooler, snoring softly) but the rest of the office is quiet.

“And… done,” Baekhyun says, attaching the entire file in an email to Junmyeon, copying it back onto his own flash drive at the same time. “Gah, thank god.”

“Hallelujah, we’re done,” Jongdae mumbles. He runs a hand through his hair, sighing, and Baekhyun totally doesn’t watch.

“Yup.” 

Now that they’re finished, though, the awkwardness creeps back into the atmosphere. Baekhyun pretends to be incredibly interested in the process of pulling out his flash drive. 

Jongdae breaks the silence first.

“I, uh, I just wanted to apologize,” he says. “I shouldn’t have… yeah.”

“It’s not your fault,” Baekhyun responds quickly. “Um, I’m sorry for not texting you when I got home.” After showering, Baekhyun had carefully deleted the number off of his phone, and tossed the napkin into the trash can.

“No, don’t be sorry. You didn’t have to.” Jongdae clears his throat, grimacing. “I shouldn’t have assumed that you’d be into me.” He looks so crestfallen, so sad. Baekhyun can’t imagine why. Everyone falls at the feet of guys like Jongdae.

“I just… I thought you were in it for the sex, and I’m not really… I don’t do well with those kind of things.” Baekhyun pauses, itches at the back of his head. 

“You thought I wanted a one-night-stand?” Jongdae’s voice is light and surprised. “You thought I was in it just for the sex?”

“Weren’t you?”

Jongdae pauses, a wry smile. “It kinda came off that way, I guess. But… I asked because I liked you, you know?”

And really, Baekhyun shouldn’t be so excited the way he is right now. “You’re… you’re into me? Like, me, with the dumb jokes and obsession with Piano Tiles?”

The way Jongdae looks up is strange. It’s mostly confusion, but there’s hope and that little spark of the life that had been in him when he’d been flirting so openly with Baekhyun that night.

“You’re cute, you know,” he says, the faintest trace of a smirk on his face. “I promise, I’m not that kind of person. Really, it was just you.”

“Oh.”

“So let me get this straight: you’re afraid of me just vanishing in the morning, so that’s why you turned me down. You don’t like sex without feelings.” Jongdae waits for Baekhyun’s embarrassed nod. “Can I ask why?”

Baekhyun shrugs. “I used to be friends-with-benefits with some guy. I ended up falling in love. He didn’t. And then he got a boyfriend and it hurt like shit, so I decided to stop doing dumb shit like that. But it’s in the past now. I’m mostly okay. Just not too keen on the whole idea of getting into a physical relationship without preamble.”

He stops when he’s realized what he’s said. It’d taken Kyungsoo and Chanyeol two months of wheedling and free food before they could get Baekhyun to explain the Zitao situation. Jongdae has been here for less than a week and Baekhyun is already spilling. His tongue is loose, as if he’s had alcohol, but Baekhyun hasn’t even had _water_ in the past few hours.

But Jongdae doesn’t react like he expects. The other man is wearing a frown. “Well,” Jongdae finally says, crossing his arms. “his loss. You’re a catch.” 

The unexpected compliment startles a laugh out of Baekhyun. “Thanks, I guess?” he says. “And, uh, likewise.” It’s a bit of a cop-out confession, but Baekhyun doesn’t think he’d be able to handle much else right now.

“Aw, you sap.” Jongdae’s tone is teasing, but his smile is radiant. 

Baekhyun has too many thoughts racing through his mind, and none of them make sense. He can’t focus on any of them, as he scrutinizes Jongdae’s every movement. But Jongdae doesn’t seem to be feeling nervous at all.

“Can I take you out to dinner?” he asks casually, resting his arms on the table and then his head, looking up at Baekhyun, an earnest look on his face. “If I go slower this time, will it up the chances of you agreeing to go out with me?”

Baekhyun’s head spins. “Uh,” he manages. “Yes?”

“Yes to which one?”

And whoa, Baekhyun’s heart is going at an impossible speed, mostly out of trepidation and fear. He tries to think of the pain that’s going to result when Jongdae ultimately walks away, but he still can’t think at all when Jongdae is smiling at him like that, as if nothing else in the world matters.

“I guess to both?” Baekhyun whispers, wide-eyed with anxiety and hesitation, but he can’t help but laugh when Jongdae claps his hands together in delight. It’s cute as hell.

Jongdae opens his mouth to say something, but he suddenly stops and looks up. “Chanyeol, what the fuck.” 

Baekhyun turns around so fast his neck twinges. Lo and behold, Chanyeol is grinning like a madman over the cubicle divider, having obviously heard everything that just happened. Instinctively, Baekhyun grabs the nearest office supply—a pack of blue post-its—and whips it at Chanyeol’s face. It hits its mark gloriously, and Chanyeol goes down with a screech.

“Byun Baekhyun, why you gotta be like this—”

“Was he there the whole time?” Jongdae asks, and too late, Baekhyun remembers the glimpse he'd caught of Chanyeol earlier.

He grimaces. "Probably."

As if it hadn't been bad enough, Chanyeol picks this moment to pop back up. “I ship you guys so much!” he screams, and from across the office, Baekhyun can see Junmyeon’s disappointed face as he stares sullenly at them. “You’re my number one oh-tee-pee!” He manages to dodge the second pack of post-its that Baekhyun throws, and also the pencil that Jongdae tosses at him. The tall fucker even sticks his tongue out at them.

Before Baekhyun is able to seriously injure Chanyeol by throwing a two-inch binder at him, the tell-tale shriek of a metal chair against tiled floor announces Kyungsoo’s arrival.

“Chanyeol,” he says, standing in Baekhyun’s cubicle, because the taller man is visible down to his shoulders over the divider. Kyungsoo’s noise-canceling headphones are hanging around his neck, a visible scowl on his face. His workbag is packed.

“Hi Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol responds, rather nervously. “Sorry for being loud.” It’s a little bit pre-emptive, because Kyungsoo hasn’t really said much, but anyone who knows Chanyeol can already figure out why Kyungsoo’s angry.

“You were doing so good,” Baekhyun says, mock-sadly, one of such people in the know. “You hadn’t used a single exclamation point this whole day.” Chanyeol chokes, staring angrily at Baekhyun, who gloats. It feels good to deliver a comeback that finally hits, after being out-witted for so long by Jongdae.

Kyungsoo snorts. Another surge of pride rushes through Baekhyun. Heck yeah, he’d made Kyungsoo laugh. From the other side, Jongdae lifts an eyebrow in mild confusion, before his brain clicks and he figures it out too.

“Anyway,” Kyungsoo continues, all traces of mirth gone from his face, "Chanyeol, I—"

Chanyeol forgets that he’d been seconds away from being killed, and goes straight back into his normal, intolerable self. “They’re going out for dinner! Dinner, Soo, dinner!”

He pauses, staring at Baekhyun, and then Jongdae, both cringing a little under his stern gaze. But then, unexpectedly: “Oh?” Kyungsoo asks lightly, the faintest of smiles curving on his lips. It’s actually a pleased smile, and not the amused expression he wears whenever Baekhyun makes a particularly funny joke—so an all-around rare phenomenon.

“That’s good,” Kyungsoo hums, crossing his arms. “But I—”

“Baekhyun’s not being a dumbass! For once!”

Jongdae snorts, but Baekhyun is less amused. He opens his mouth, a comeback already lined up, but Kyungsoo beats him to the punch. Rather tragically, Baekhyun is forced to close his mouth, but it’s almost worth it when Jongdae notices his sad fate and rubs his shoulder comfortingly, scooching closer.

“Chanyeol, that’s great, congrats, but—” Yet again, Kyungsoo doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Kyungsoo, this is the moment of a lifetime! I—”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to go eat dinner together, but you’re obviously pre-occupied, so I'll take that as a no,” Kyungsoo finally snaps. But his face doesn’t look very angry, or even at all. “Good night to you, Chanyeol.” 

He turns around and walks briskly out of the cubicle, but not before flashing a bright smile at Jongdae and Baekhyun, who get it immediately, smiles twitching the corners of their lips. Kyungsoo leaves the office with the ominous sound of the shutting door. Baekhyun’s gotta give it to him; he’s acting the perfect part of an angry boyfriend.

And then it’s just Chanyeol, gaping in horror at the empty spot where Kyungsoo had been. “Fuck.”

“Oof,” Jongdae says. “You should go chase after him.”

“I should, shouldn’t I?” Chanyeol asks, rather dazed. “I should go after him.”

“Definitely,” Baekhyun cuts in, and then decides to add, rather unsubtly, “You should probably go figure out his emotional state right now.”

Jongdae elbows him, already beginning to lose it. It’s impossible for Baekhyun to keep a straight face when they make eye contact, but Chanyeol’s already taking off: “Kyungsoo! Soo, wait!”

“So, uh,” Jongdae starts, the office suddenly quiet again without Kyungsoo and his dumbass. He raises an eyebrow at Baekhyun. “Dinner?”

 

 

The golden arches tip Baekhyun off as to where they’re going before they even pull into the parking lot. 

“Turn left here,” Jongdae instructs from the passenger’s side seat. He’d taken the train to work, leaving his car at home today, so Baekhyun had teased him and then offered to drive.

“What the fuck,” he laughs, because of course Jongdae would. “You’re taking me to McDonald’s?”

It’s nice to see Jongdae flush for once, embarrassed and chagrined smile spreading on his cheeks as he grins sheepishly at Baekhyun. 

They park and enter the fast food chain. Baekhyun orders a classic Quarter Pounder (without the pickles, that is) and Jongdae gets some weird seasonal Sriracha Guacamole artisan burger.

“There are way too many syllables in that name,” Baekhyun tells Jongdae helpfully. The other rolls his eyes at him. They order a pack of fries, deciding to share it when both confess that they’re not super into fries.

“Turns out I didn’t bring my wallet?” Jongdae suddenly murmurs, and Baekhyun turns around to stare at him incredulously.

“You bring me to McDonald’s of all places, and then don’t even bother to pay?” Baekhyun asks, affronted. But he’s reaching for his wallet already, pulling out some cash and dumping it out on the counter. The burger’s aren’t much money at all, and honestly, he would have been willing to pay much more if it meant he could spend the time with Jongdae. “Nah, I’m kidding. I’ve got it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jongdae whines, rubbing his eyes. “I must have left it in the office when I went up to the editing floor. I’ll pay you back.”

Baekhyun waves it off. “Take me out on a better date next time,” he jokes.

“So this is a date?” Jongdae asks, eyebrows raising. It’s only half-teasingly. The other half sounds awfully hopeful. Everything in Baekhyun’s rational mind is telling him that this is a bad idea, but then again, the rational part of Baekhyun’s brain is just for decoration anyway.

“Sure, if you want it to be,” he says, and then has to look away because Jongdae is doing the radiant-smile thing again and it physically blinds Baekhyun. Sounds cheesy, but Baekhyun swears he’s never seen anything quite so beautiful.

It’s late, so they’re the only ones in the restaurant. Baekhyun turns in a circle and then picks a booth seat, sliding in on one side and then patting the seat next to him for Jongdae to sit. They make conversation for a little while, but then Jongdae has to go to the bathroom and Baekhyun’s left alone in the seat.

He checks his phone. There’s nothing to do, and so Baekhyun clicks on the rather neglected Piano Tiles app. Might as well. Jongdae’s still in first place, no surprise there. He taps on Valse Gracieuse, and reminds himself: the record is two thousand and fifty-eight, he can beat this.

Baekhyun tunes out the rest of the world, tapping like crazy on the screen, quietly humming under his breath to the melody. Soon, he’s gotten two stars. Three stars. One crown. Two.

But once again, he doesn’t make it, because Jongdae comes back and drops a tray full of food on the table. Baekhyun startles, and it’s enough to make him mess it up. A black tile escapes past his fingers. This time, though, he’s not nearly as annoyed, already looking up to smile at Jongdae.

“What’re you doing?” Jongdae says, and then snorts when he sees Baekhyun’s phone screen, the second place Valse Gracieuse still flashing on the screen. He extends a hand. “Gimme.”

Baekhyun hands his phone over to Jongdae, grabbing a burger at the same time. Before he knows it, Jongdae is tapping the replay button, fingers barely moving as he plays. As if hypnotized, Baekhyun watches as Jongdae breezes through the tiles. His eyes get wide as Jongdae effortlessly gets past the third crown, and then even wider as Jongdae just _keeps going_ , tiles already blurring into streaks. Still, Jongdae manages to catch every single one as it passes.

It takes him almost a full eight minutes to finally die.

“Holy fuck,” Baekhyun wheezes, staring in disbelief at Jongdae. “What are you?”

“Not first place on this song anymore,” Jongdae says coyly, tapping on the large number on the screen. Baekhyun’s icon moves past Jongdae’s on the leaderboard, with a proud 2301 displayed next to it. “You’re welcome, by the way. That was the highest I’ve ever gotten on that song.”

Rather inelegantly, Baekhyun gapes at the screen. “And you’re okay with it going on my account?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Speechless, Baekhyun tries to come up with something to say. “You’re not going to tell Chanyeol,” he commands, the only thing he can think of that doesn’t involve him showering Jongdae with affection, but then the next words coming out of his mouth are, anyway. “But... holy crap, thank you so much? You just helped me beat my biggest competitor… which also happens to be you?”

“I’d like to receive my payment now, please?” Jongdae sniffs. He unwraps his burger, and takes a huge bite, reminding Baekhyun of his own rapidly-cooling meal. “These mad skills don’t come for free, you know.”

Baekhyun snorts. He opens up his burger, wrinkling his nose when he sees the pickles. He’d ordered without, but… oh well. As he answers Jongdae, he gingerly picks each one out. “I already bought this meal for you, so I have no payment to give you. Unless you like pickles. ”

“What the hell, you don’t like pickles? We’re calling it off now, I don’t think I can do this at all,” Jongdae teases, taking the pickles from Baekhyun’s side and putting them on his own burger. Baekhyun knows it’s a joke, but it’s still a little scary nonetheless. He pauses in the middle of chewing, and then tries to play it off like he hadn’t been affected at all.

Jongdae notices, and his eyes soften. “You know I was just kidding, right?” He gently nudges Baekhyun’s side with his elbow. “I just helped you pass me on Piano Tiles. If that’s not true love, I don’t know what that is.”

And it’s supposed to be comforting, but Baekhyun stares, petrified. Love? That’s not a word that he really knows how to deal with, so his brain short-circuits instead. _Unrecognized input,_ his brain screams. _System error._

“What?” Jongdae asks, and then realization dawns on him. “Oh. I didn’t mean it like—no, I did, but not exactly— that. Maybe. Definitely in the future. Although,” he looks at Baekhyun shyly, tilting his head and smiling, “I definitely _like_ you a heck of a lot.”

Baekhyun fumbles for a wisecrack or some dumb one-liner to break the sudden air of serious emotion, as Jongdae makes direct eye contact, but he decides to not hide behind a joke this time, because there is so much affection swelling up in his chest, so much sudden appreciation for the man in front of him. Baekhyun suddenly wants to know every single detail about Jongdae, wants to know his hobbies and what he does. He wants to crack jokes with Jongdae, wants to cuddle on the couch and watch re-runs of shows that they'd both never watch on their own. It takes him a moment to try and put his feelings into words.

Kim Jongdae pauses, silently waiting for a response. There is burger grease staining the corners of his lips and his hair is sticking up in five different directions. His eyes wrinkle when he smiles at Baekhyun, a perfect angel in the dim lighting of the fast food restaurant. He is flirty but sweet and kind and good-hearted and he has the prettiest smiles Baekhyun has ever fucking seen. Also the fastest hand-eye coordination. Baekhyun may be a little shit, but he is a little romantic shit and Kim Jongdae just happens to make his heart race.

When Baekhyun doesn’t answer, Jongdae’s voice goes even softer. “I like you,” he repeats. “Is that okay, Baekhyun?”

Most importantly, he likes Baekhyun just as much as Baekhyun likes him.

“That’s okay,” Baekhyun whispers. He takes Jongdae’s hand and laces their greasy fingers together, hesitant but also very, very happy. Ah, fuck, he’s falling in love, isn’t he? But he tells himself not to be scared, because Jongdae is not a one-night mistake. Jongdae is Jongdae. Baekhyun’s voice gets a little hoarse when he continues.“That’s more than okay.”

And really, it is.


End file.
